Monophony, polyphony and pianos

The enormous possibilities that exist in terms of the performance of monody ought to lead to a huge variety of sounds in a batch of ten discs. The fact that this is not the case is thought-provoking, to say the least. There would seem, to judge by the majority of the approaches represented here, to be a consensus that medieval monody should be, by and large, gentle and fluid, sung at low dynamic levels and given a halo by resonant acoustics or delicate instrumental work. It is not necessary to advocate a return to the practice of orientalizing medieval music (or making the medieval ‘strange’) to find this state of affairs at least curious.